Blame the CFO
According to BtoB magazine’s coverage of last week’s SiriusDecisions Summit 2011 held in Scottsdale, sales must be “pulled into the fold” by marketing, to better understand alignment and sales enablement. That was the overriding theme delivered throughout the event and reiterated on its final day.
“It’s not a question of adding systems to fix sales and marketing alignment, but rather a challenge of leadership,” according to John Neeson, SiriusDecisions’ managing director, at a wrapup session Friday. “It’s about two leaders—the heads of marketing and sales—fixing things together.”
Another common thread at this year’s summit was the need to gain C-suite buy-in for these evolving sales-marketing initiatives. Several case studies presented during the week detailed resistance to proactive sales-marketing alignment.
“One major theme here is how CFOs must begin to think about marketing, not so much as an expense but rather as an investment,” Neeson said.
Marketing Craftsmanship 